Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/159

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Regarding the Negro Congressmen in the light of the standards already referred to, we shall first make inquiry as to their mental fitness to function as law makers. Broadly considered, they may be divided into two groups: first, those who possessed but limited education; second, those who were college bred.

Among the men comprising the first group, certain common characteristics are noticeable: first, they were mainly members of the earliest Reconstruction Congresses, beginning with the Forty-first, in which Negroes held membership, and were therefore but little removed from slavery; second, some of them were born of slave parents or had been, themselves, slaves; third, others were brought up in communities which expressly prohibited the establishment of educational institutions for Negroes; and fourth, all of them, by dint of severe application in later years, secured, prior to their election to Congress, a better education than rudimentary instruction. The members of this group were twelve in number, including Long of Georgia; De Large, Rainey, Ransier, and Smalls of South Carolina; Lynch